The CRAG is giving Sanofi one week to respond to the community demands, or will escalate action!
Four and a half months ago, Treatment Action Group (TAG) and dozens of organizational and individual signatories issued an open letter that requested the following considerations from Sanofi:
1. Lowering the price of rifapentine to $35 per box of 32 tablets of 150 mg; and
2. Pledging $2 million to the Tuberculosis Trials Consortium (TBTC) for the continued development of rifapentine.
Disappointingly, Sanofi has neither committed to the requested price reduction for rifapentine, nor has the company released the required funding to support the TBTC.
Therefore, the Community Research Advisors Group (CRAG) on November 13 issued another open letter to demand that these requests be met.
“We are grateful for Sanofi’s investments to date in developing rifapentine for TB, and for its undocumented whisperings of a lowered rifapentine price, but we will not allow more months, or even weeks, to pass without an official Sanofi response. Our plan, as representatives of an active, engaged, visible, and vocal TB community, is to escalate our advocacy activities if we do not receive written commitment of your intention within a week of receipt of this letter.”
The letter can be downloaded from here.
About CRAG
The Community Research Advisors Group (CRAG) is an international, community-based advisory body that works to ensure the meaningful participation and engagement of affected communities in research conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Tuberculosis Trials Consortium (TBTC).